LoliRock Revisited

It's been ten years since LoliRock first took the stage on Netflix, and rumors of a potential third season inspired me to watch the show again as I did with Winx Club, which recently previewed its upcoming reboot in Italy. LoliRock is a French Magical Girl show about a lost princess who must master her new powers while trying to liberate a mysterious faraway kingdom. It hits all the right plot notes to fit the Magical Girl algorithm, but poor writing prevents it from being a memorable entry in the genre. One thing that makes LoliRock unique is its focus on music. The three main characters aren't only magical princesses from other worlds but members of a hit rock band that performs full-length music videos at the end of each episode. Unfortunately, the overly synthesized sound of these songs is not very appealing to me, and I ended up skipping over them during my rewatch.


The main character in LoliRock is Iris, a beautiful girl who loves to sing that was raised by her aunt without knowing her true parents. Her crush, Nathaniel, works at a smoothie shop and encourages her to audition for a new band. The audition turns out to be a ruse set up by Talia and Auriana (which I thought was spelled Arianna until very recently) to find the lost princess of Ephedia. Iris turns out to be that princess, and her whole world turns upside down when she must suddenly navigate her newfound crystal powers, fighting bad guys, and becoming a rock star. The working title for this show was Star Princess, which does a better job of emphasizing these themes. The premise is very intriguing for fans of princesses, magical girls, and music, but the show plays it so safely that it never crosses the line from being a good show for girls to a great one.


Though I initially remembered Iris as a ditz who was more interested in her crush on Nathaniel than learning about her culture as an Ephedian princess, a second watch changed this perception. Throughout both seasons, Iris regularly writes in her diary about her curiosity of her true heritage and the struggles of living two very different lives. The problem is that the writers never let her explore this dichotomy. Instead, both seasons of LoliRock are extremely formulaic, following the Magical Girl format to a T. In almost every episode, Iris's necklace lights up to tell her someone is in trouble, and she finds the person and tries to help them. Then the twin troublemakers Praxina and Mephisto attack, the girls transform and defeat them, and an "Oracle Gem" is sent back to the crown of Ephedia, which needs an unspecified number of gems to restore its power and save the kingdom from the wicked Greymoor.


The show comes close to taking risks and introducing new ideas but takes the safest way out each time, which usually involves pressing a "reset" button at the end of the episode. For instance, there is one episode where Nathaniel sees Iris transform and learns her secret, which would have changed the entire dynamic of their relationship and set a new standard for romance in the Magical Girl genre. Instead, Iris turns back time so Nathaniel forgets everything and refrains from telling him her secret again even though he was very supportive. The second season introduces two new magical princesses, Carissa and Lyna, which could have given fans a chance to pick a new favorite character, but these two were rarely in the show as though the writers forgot they added them to the team. Another missed opportunity is when Iris learns late in the second season that her Aunt Ellen who raised her was from Ephedia all along. She could have been a mentor character from the beginning of the show, but her history is not brought up again until the final episode.

If I had never seen another Magical Girl show, I might have been amazed by the story and animation behind LoliRock. However, it came out when many other shows had used similar concepts more compellingly, making this a more forgettable one. That said, I love the designs of the characters both in and out of their Magical Girl outfits and the transformation sequences. Iris's pink and sparkly outfit stands out as one of the most tasteful and aesthetically pleasing Magical Girl looks of all time. If the rumors of a third season are true, my suggestion to the writers would be to spend more time in Ephedia and explore the life that Iris could have had if her kingdom hadn't been conquered when she was born. I would also like to learn more about the other princesses' kingdoms like Xeris and Volta, which are barely addressed in the two seasons that are out now.

What do you think, readers? Can LoliRock improve in a potential third season, or is it too late to make a lasting impact in the Magical Girl genre? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Comments

Sugar said…
I had the same problem with the show. I liked the character designs and, unlike you, the songs, but the plot bored me. The romance between Iris and Nathaniel almost does not develop, it is left to rest from episode one to the end, it does not progress, it almost seems that they made them childhood friends to avoid developing it, It felt flat and boring, I also didn't like Talia's underdeveloped relationship with a boy, the romance didn't score for me although Nathaniel was nice.
Some fans said that Mephisto because of his "bad being a villain" personality could have been redeemed and the love interest of Talia or Auriana (and I support this). His sister was close to becoming good, I also don't like that the fans saw chemistry between Iris and the white-haired boy (I didn't really see that) but the scriptwriters themselves said no, that there is no interest and that he loves another girl...that should be shown in the story does not mean that the creator corrects what the fans think they see.
September 3, 2024 at 9:01 AM
Lisa Dawn said…
Hi Sugar! You have brought up some other good ideas that were incorporated into the second season and reset by the end of the episode. The one where Praxina became good is a great example. They could have developed that further in future episodes, but instead, they pressed a "reset" button at the end and never brought it up again. The episode where Mephisto asked the LoliRock girls to help him rescue Praxina is also a good example of how he could have formed a relationship with one of them over time, but it also ended with them saying "Let's never speak of this again."

I also saw chemistry between Iris and Lev, but it might have been related to the way the actor delivered his lines in the English version of the show. If you watched it in another language, it might have come across differently. He seemed like the "bad boy" character that you want the main character to end up with even though you know it's wrong, kind of like the love interest from The Princess Diaries 2. The episode with Talia falling for a nerdy boy who programmed robots was interesting because she never showed any interest in nerdy things prior to that, but it also ended without her ever showing an interest in it again and going back to her usual cynical nature.

Overall, I think the writers were too focused on good ideas for individual episodes and not for the series as a whole.
September 3, 2024 at 9:08 AM
Sugar said…
The thing about bad boys is that sometimes their character seems more in love with the protagonist than the "good" love interest. A tough bad boy helps the protagonist and shows a softer attitude towards her while sometimes the writers make the good guy makes some pretty bad mistakes (being rude to the protagonist or getting angry, believing others before her when they try to discredit her, not supporting her when she needs it). In mangas it usually happens that the bad boy ends up always putting the interest of the protagonist first and evolves for the better while the good boy evolves for the worse or comes out with excuses like "oh yes I know that I didn't go to your grandfather's funeral who raised you but my childhood female friend was feeling bad so I had to take her to the emergency room and then stay with her because she was nervous" while the bad boy would run on foot all the way from his house to the cemetery in the rain just to hug the girl 😆
September 3, 2024 at 9:32 AM
Lisa Dawn said…
Interesting! I'm certainly not against "Beauty and the Beast" stories where the female lead improves the gruff male lead for the better. I actually thought Iris had more chemistry with Lev than she did with Nathaniel, but the writers had already written themselves into a corner by making Nathaniel a "permanent" boyfriend character, so they couldn't make anything happen between her and Lev. The show might have been more interesting if Nathaniel didn't exist at all and Lev went on to pursue a relationship with Iris after he realized he was backstabbed by Greymoor. Gah, there was so much potential here!
September 3, 2024 at 9:36 AM
HB said…
One thing I would have loved is if the girls went traveling around the world to find the oracle gems and used the them being a band as a cover. I remember the backstory saying they got scattered around earth and yet they're all are in the same town? Did they end up there because they somehows knew Iris would come to the same town?

There are things the writers really could've utilized (like the main villain actually being Iris dad, make Nathaniel a real character with flaws, possibly have the twins be a rival band) but they went for the safe bland route
September 3, 2024 at 11:40 AM
CristinaMilizia201 said…
In regards to Carissa and Lyna, this Tumblr post mentions quite a bit. Basically, the writers were asked late into season 1's production to add 2 new princesses. However, they felt that adding them as part of the main cast would make things too bloated. As such, they decided to make them more supporting players that weren't part of the main gang, but could be called upon when need be.

https://www.tumblr.com/teamlolirock/162714405036/lyna-carissas-developpment
September 22, 2024 at 2:41 AM
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